Tim BurnsHome Carapace

​HOMELESS CARAPACE or safe living solutions for homelessness in Perth in the form of self-sustainable car capsules

The concept of a car as an itinerant living module stems from cyclical mass production, universal street presence, recycling and an over abundance in Western Australia where, due to the lack of public transport and western consumerism, it’s often the last device in a homeless spiral, especially for single mothers with kids. Like caravan parks for the grey nomads and trailer parks for the American poor, car parks will become more permanent stations for an increasing homeless and itinerant population as mining and manufacturing decline and homes become un-affordable. As the current public service announcements attest to with calls for donated sleeping bags, the most significance aspect of homelessness is security to sleep safe without walls. With minimum resources car parks can provide basic ablutions and facilities with security in lockable powered cars, as already happens in other car centric societies like California. Contextual Arts faux airstream CAR-A-PACE model comes with solar entertainment and interactivity modules at minimum cost in the Cottesloe beach car park during Sculpture by the Sea.

James QuintonAfter Heat

Sorcha told me that whenever she walks in the wind blown streets of Fremantle, she always tends to think of the place underwater. She said she doesn’t know exactly how the buildings will change, but some will have a permanent watermark and their basements and ground floor will become fish tanks. The warming air is warming the oceans and melting icesheets and sea levels are predicted to rise as much as one point one metres over the coming decades and if the seas rise a salt water triangle beginning at the northern end of Packenham street, to Bathers beach, to Little Creatures and then up to South Terrace will all be inundated, the waters rising and falling with the tide each day. The skatepark that runs south-east along the line of the train tracks within the grounds of the Esplanade park will have water rising half way up the half pipes and filling the bowls. This, she said, as if she had been pondering the image for some time, will be an unexpected reversal, as swimming pools are usually drained to make bowls for skateboarding.

Sorcha said you can feel the planet getting hotter and nowadays nobody goes out during the middle of the day and just last night, the temperature rose two point five degrees from 11pm to 1am and has continued to rise all morning until only the brave or those with air-conditioning venture out. The heat, especially standing in direct sunlight, is hot enough to burn the dash board of cars and many arguments have erupted about the apparent ownership of shaded parking bays closest to the markets or to the Woolstores shopping centre. These violent outbursts directed at complete strangers occur daily and onlookers are seen filming the incidents on their mobile phones to upload on social media. I too, began Sorcha, witnessed one of these outbursts, when a woman with black hair and black clothing had been attempting to reverse into a parking bay and a man snuck into her spot near a paperbark tree. When the passengers of the mans car opened their doors they were ambushed by the woman, speaking in Cantonese, which they understood, except for the driver who instructed the woman to get lost, before making his way through the steaming vehicles to the food court. The irate woman who missed her spot left her car stationary in the middle of the car park causing a traffic jam and all kinds of honking from other drivers. As the passengers were following the man to the food court they spotted another car leaving and stood at the entrance of the bay until the angry woman was able to slowly reverse her late model Mercedes into the spot and hastily throw her foil sun protection screen inside the windscreen and secured it with the visors. I often wonder, said Sorcha, if people suddenly find themselves at a breaking point and lose their shit one day or live their lives going from one confrontation to another without realising.